If the human population were to voluntarily shrink itself, I would consider that a blessing. Less competition over resources, fewer wars, less environmental damage....less suffering for the remaining population.

Shows how ridiculous predictions about the future more than 10-20 years ahead are in reality!

Nobody knew 20 years ago how dramatic the world would have changed by now. Population growth was considered the major thread to mankind. Right now even in India, South America and Africa population growth has dramatically slowed down. There are signs, that population growth in slowith down in islamic countries, too.

For Germany, a dramatic slowdown has been pedicted for 40 years!
Instead, the population reached one new high after another - through immigration.

Immigrants from Eastern Europe as well as from Asia and Africa are eager to migrate - and will continue to do so for a forseeable future.

I cannot think of a single society extinguished by low reproduction rates throughout the history of mankind.

@ Cloudwarrior:
Thanks for the link. The variable to watch is NRR and the only surprise is how fertile US women are by comparison with fellow English-speaking countries and especially Europe. Also how Southern Europeans are far less willing to have children than Britons, how China has Southern European numbers, how almost the whole world will be on zero growth at current fertility rates, which I consider is very good news, not the excuse for launching an End of the World tirade on the Daily Chart section.

The bad news is that Arab nations have such aggressive fertility rates. Is it against Islam to use birth control? Hopefully the Arab Spring will move Arab societies closer to everybody else´s standards on this issue.

Such things tend to correct themselves in short period of time.
E.g. in certain states in India where dowry was prevalent 20 years back saw mass abortions and infanticides of females (which is illegal of course). Today, there are too few girls ~ 750 girls for 1000 boys. Given this scarcity of brides, reverse dowry is being paid by boy's family. Also ensuring better 'choice' for girls and relatively better lives.

Ultimately, this changing equation now is encouraging female births in the region.

This chart is slightly tongue-in-cheek (which has escaped some of the more serious people on here), nonetheless it is an interesting extrapolation of a trend for a comparison purpose. I am assuming they are using the constant-fertility variant - funnily enough that is the fertility rate at this moment in time. Most countries are experiencing a continually declining fertility rate, so in five years the diagnosis might be even more severe for non-western countries whose fertility rates have plateaued.

What has not been discussed is the unceasing belief that many show on here that it is the West that is in a state of population ageing and decline and yet it is some of the developing world's powerhouses that are facing an even faster and steeper decline.

For China with a population of ~1,200 million to be able to trend to 0 at roughly the same time as Japan that currently only has ~130 million shows that China is experiencing/facing a much steeper population that Japan - which is currently the poster child for population ageing and decline.

And as for the first-time poster Bj659jKHAK
"Elephant in the room people. India hasn't been studied."

Actually India has - and while its population is currently growing, its fertility rate is declining faster than many other countries. According to the UN, India's population will hit about 880 million on the low variant - a possibility with India's continually increasing affluence and income levels. Though using the constant-fertility variant as the above chart, it would hit 3.3 billion by 2100.

We don't need lots of children to support us in old age any more, be free farm labourers etc, so I view falling fertility as a vote by the human race on life. We don't like the way we live enough to want to pass it on. Therefore, governments need to change their thinking. So much of the way we are governed depends on the assumption of ongoing population growth. We need to plan now for a falling population. Perhaps when people don't have to live in small boxes with a view of the wall next door they will start wanting to breed again.

Many commentators have dismissed this article as being simplistic; as being a poor indicator of any conceivable future. And they are right. But the point of such articles is not to accurately predict any ‘end of history,’ rather their point is to highlight a serious issue that needs attention.

There are many policy implications of such data, both in terms of infrastructure planning that must take into account a declining and ageing population but also in developing policy shifts that will *reverse* the trend. Obviously, there are currently major social disincentives in place that have created the problem. It is not money, it is not health nor is it education, for our current level in all of these in the general population throughout the developed societies is at all-time historical highs. People are not having families because of any lack in these specific needs. They are not having families because families are *disvalued* in relation to other social opportunities.

Without question, raising even a single child is a lot of work, a fair bit of aggravation and seriously inhibits parents in multiple ways. But in raising multiple children, the problem compounds, especially in terms of the financial drain, parental time commitment and the household disruption. There are compensations, but what this data shows is that, by in large, the compensations are not enough to offset the negatives. There are also social values that decrease the incentives of raising children. In particular, attitudes promoting casual sex, freedom from social responsibility and a focus on living in the present. These are not necessarily bad in and of themselves, but if society puts such values forth as the *highest* values, then they are going to be major inhibitions to raising a family.

And those are just examples. Real data needs to be gathered, the problem rigorously analyzed and policies put in place that will address the issue in a systematic and intelligent manner. Of course, futuristic solutions are easy to point to and don’t require any intelligent intervention or analysis, so they have some appeal to our current stock of policy-makers. As do ideological solutions that don’t require any data in order to be correct. But both are evasions, as is the attitude that the problem will, somehow, resolve itself without a major social upheaval.

To be responsible, though, means that you must effectively deal with the current reality to the best of your ability, and the first step is to find out the underlying motivators behind this social behavior. You then use social policy to adjust the incentives to correct it. Clearly, however, our science is not up to the task of giving clear-cut answers to such a complex problem, and partial and iterative solutions are going to be the best that we will achieve. But the point of the article, as of this commentary, is that we had better begin soon.

There's an ancient Indian & Chinese proverb that state similar messages, viz: "When the hen crows, it portends the end of the world/era"

We can see that already happening in the West, where females are taking over & emasculating males, insidiously but inexorably. Men have been reduced to second class citizens, for a while now & will soon join the endangered list!

The population of many places in the chart is not approaching extinction but expansion.

The writer forgets to consider the net migration rate. In fact, places like Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong are magnets for migrants from neighboring regions.

If these places are losing population, their property prices would be rock bottom like North Vegas! On the contrary, those prices are so inflated that they are even out of reach for well-off Europeans or Americans!

The only place that is certain to face population extinction if current trend persists is Japan which steadfastly declines to accept migrants.

"How about cloning the most desirable female specimens of each ethnic group?"

There will not be enough genetic diversity that way. This is why some guys have to do it with the ugly ones... they are my heroes... such selfless individuals.
************************
C'mon, I wrote "desirable" which does not necessarily mean "beautiful." A person can be desirable (by some but not by others) for a zillion reasons aside face/body symmetry,'golden' proportions or other such measurable criteria.